Devil's Dream - Madison Smartt Bell [112]
“How would I not be?”
“Huh …” But Forrest seemed to have slipped back into his reverie. “I reckon that makes a mess of sorry folks about now. By damn it didn’t have to go that way! If—just—if I known as much West Point horseshit as what them other officers do, Yankees’d whup me every day I find’m.”
Matthew remained standing in silence. A trickle of rainwater dried on his back. Of a sudden Forrest looked up and noticed him again.
“Ye fought a hard fight that day, Matthew,” he said. “The day when my brother got kilt. I seen ye and I recollect hit. Ye done right well.”
“Thank you sir,” Matthew said. “I try to do my best.”
Forrest studied him closely now. “Well, was it anything else on yore mind?”
“How’s your foot?” Matthew said.
“Hit’s a goddamn embarrassment is how it is,” Forrest snapped. “Hoppen around like a clown in a minstrel show.”
“They say Sherman believes you’re dead of lockjaw.”
“Sherman! He’d dearly love it if I was. I tell ye I hope to let him know hit’ll take more to kill me than a hole in the goddamn toe.”
Forrest glared at his upraised foot. “Hurts like the devil though, I’ll grant ye that. I been hurt twicet as serious and had half the pain.” He looked up again. “I’ll wager ye didn’t come up here about my toe.”
Matthew side-stepped to avoid a drip. A swag in the canvas made him hold his head low.
“I seen how ye fought hard that day,” Forrest repeated. “What is it that you’re fighten for?”
“I want you to recognize me.” Matthew pried his jaw open and spoke in a rush.
“Recognize you?”
“Own me. Own up to me, I mean.”
“Huh,” Forrest said. “Well, hit’s a limit. Ole Miss’ll only stand for so much. She cain’t he’p it. She’s made thataway.” He turned his head and looked off through the rain. “What is it ye want I got power to give?”
Matthew said nothing. It seemed to him that he couldn’t think. In place of thought was the drip of rain on canvas.
“Well, ye come up here of yore own accord,” Forrest said. “I never sent for ye.”
You sent to bring me out of Louisiana, Matthew thought.
“Own …” Forrest said. “Son, I’ve owned hogs and horses and mules. I’ve owned land and slaves. Bought’m and sold’m. Et’m or lost’m.” He hitched up in the chair, wincing as his foot dragged back across the keg. “I’ll tell ye one thing. All that ye really can own is yore actions.”
“Your actions,” Matthew said.
“Yes,” Forrest said. “Because that’s the only thing that’s truly in yore hand.”
The wind blew rain across the canvas, then subsided. “I seen you and Willie don’t fight so much no more.” Not since Roderick died, Matthew thought.
“I won’t deny, hit pleases me,” Forrest said. “Fer hit warn’t never no use in that struggle. Ye cain’t stomp yore blood outen him no more than he can stomp it outen you. A thing ye cain’t he’p, hit’s no use to fight it. Ain’t no use think on it neither.”
Well, thought Matthew, but how do you stop?
“Ye take what ye’re given,” Forrest said. “Fer ye ain’t got no choice.”
“You choose,” Matthew said.
“Is that what ye think?” Forrest laughed harshly, and drew his foot in, so the heel of it rested on the damp ground. “I reckon I think so myself, most times. But don’t ye know hit ain’t always that way.” He leaned forward, studying through sheets of rain a dozen-odd troopers leading horses round the bottom of the hill, then sat back and passed one hand briefly over his eyes.
“Hit’s sometimes,” he said. “If I give myself to the doen of a thing I don’t know nothen of a minute before nor of what’s to come after. All I got is what’s right now. You got that in ye too, Matthew, I seen it. Hit’s biggern both us, it is. Hit don’t always come out but it’s in there.”
Forrest strained to lift his bad foot back to the powder keg again. Matthew moved to help him but Forrest, teeth gritted, waved him away. He settled and waited for the pain to pass before he spoke again.
“You want a free paper?” he said. “I’ll write ye one. Only reason I ain’t till yet is I got it in mind you’re better off, the way it is now, if folks